[giardini]

IMO part of Microsoft's strategic view is that any developer time spent on non-Microsoft technology is bad, so they saturate the developer with Microsoft-specific requirements and deviations from otherwise well-established standards.

Microsoft's proprietary software development products (Visual Studio, .NET, etc.) present the developer with complex non-standard terminologies, languages, categories and specifications unique to Microsoft tools and platforms.

In the more open sphere of the WWW where Microsoft has at times dominated the market, the same strategy applies: inundate web developers with deviations from the standards and with Microsoft-specific "innovations". It works as long as Microsoft has a large share of the market because you simply cannot ignore their presence. In the end, much, if not most, of your time is used up supporting Microsoft's idiosyncracies, leaving less time for alternatives.